The invention relates to a teat unit.
A baby ideally suckles from its mother's breast.
However, there are various reasons why this is not always possible. For many years now, attempts have therefore been made to develop teats for feeding bottles that allow the baby to feed as naturally as possible. The baby should be able to switch back and forth between the mother's breast and a feeding bottle as far as possible without confusion. Importance is attached to, among other things, the baby not being able to accidentally interrupt the flow of milk by pressing the mouthpiece of the teat too strongly together. In the early stages of the development of teats, another main aim was to ensure that the teat does not cause any lasting damage in the baby's mouth. Another aim is to ensure that a baby who feeds too eagerly does not choke. The prior art therefore proposes either using small suction openings or flow restrictors.
EP 1 532 957 discloses, for example, a teat with a large suction opening and with a flow restrictor arranged in the mouthpiece. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,101,991 and BE 381523 also, the flow restrictors protrude into the mouthpiece.
EP 0 384 394 describes a teat with a first flow restrictor having a large opening, and with a suction opening as second flow restrictor with a smaller cross section.
In WO 99/22693, a teat with a valve is present, but without a flow restrictor of defined cross-sectional surface area.
WO 2007/137440, WO 2007/137436 and WO 2007/137885 disclose relatively stiff mouthpieces that are only minimally deformable.
WO 03/013419 describes a relatively small suction opening and a larger through-opening outside the mouthpiece. The through-opening is in this case provided with a nonreturn one-way valve.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,791,503 discloses a relatively complex teat unit with a nonreturn valve.